Unlocking the full potential of Quebec hydropower to balance renewables through the Northeast will require major efforts to overcome barriers to transmission planning, according to speakers at a webinar led by the Acadia Center.

FERC accepted CAISO’s proposal to allow for storage resources to bid above the ISO’s $1,000/MWh soft offer cap in the real-time market to account for their intraday opportunity costs.

Extreme heat in the Desert Southwest and low hydro in the Northwest could pose reliability problems for the Western Interconnection this summer, although the region doesn’t face an alarming risk for grid emergencies, WECC officials said.

CAISO’s Board of Governors and WEIM Governing Body unanimously voted to approve an expedited proposal to increase the ISO’s soft offer cap from $1,000/MWh to $2,000.

FERC denied an application for a 3.6-MW pumped storage hydropower facility on the Little Colorado River in Arizona —  entirely on Navajo Nation land — after the tribe protested that it had not been consulted with by the developer.

Despite record winter precipitation in California, hydroelectric generation in the Western U.S. fell to a 22-year low in the 2022/23 water year, largely due to drought conditions in Washington and Oregon.